1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to botanical seed starters for ornamental plants, and more particularly to a seed starter assembly which affords interrelated pleasing visual and olfactory sensory impression, which impressions are made before the seeds in the assembly sprout and are visible.
2. Status of Art
A flower is the name given to that part of a botanical seed plant containing the reproductive organs of the plant and the associated protective and attractive parts thereof. Flowers pollinated by insects have one or more nectaries that secrete a sugar solution. Substances that give off floral odors which are mostly essential oils, ordinarily exist close to the nectar producing region. Most insect-pollinated plants have visual clues as well as odors to attract the pollinators to the plant and guide them to the nectar.
Flowers have been cultivated and bred since time immorial. The beauty and perfume of flowers are celebrated in legend and folklore, and many flowers have symbolic associations. Thus, the lotus flower plays an important role in oriental religion; the rose is associated with heraldry; and in the United States, each state has a state flower.
The physical form and color of a flower is inseparable from its odor. Hence, the visual impression made by a flower is intimately associated with its olfactory effect, as in the case of a rose or a violet. Thus, if one were to pick up a carnation and detect no smell at all, this effect would be disturbing, which is why an artificial flower, however perfect the copy, is "dead" and generally unappealing.
Without a seed to start with, one does not obtain a flower. The seed is the ripened pistol of a flower and is composed of the plant embryo, varying amounts of stored food (endosperm) and an outer seed coat. A dry seed is in a dormant state, and in order for the seed to germinate and sprout, it is necessary that the seed be planted in a moist environment. It is not necessary that this environment include plant nutrients, for the seed makes use of its own stored food. But for continued growth, it is necessary to transfer the sprout to soil containing the necessary nutrients.
Seed starters are known in which seeds for a given flower, such as a violet, are planted in a small box containing soil. By maintaining the soil in a moist condition, the seed will in due course sprout, after which the sprout is transferred to a garden or to a large flower pot filled with soil. Because the period necessary for the seeds to sprout in the starter is more or less prolonged, the conventional seed starter during this period is strictly utilitarian, for it affords neither a pleasing visual nor an olfactory sensation.
The use of conventional starters is a frustrating experience to the typical user, for it often takes many weeks for the seeds to sprout, and during this period there is no visual evidence that anything is happening. And while seed starters are much less expensive than ornamental plants that have already flowered, many plant lovers, to avoid such frustration, will purchase the more costly plants.